For most, family is party: Modi’s attack on Congress

New Delhi, Jan 23 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday took a jibe at the Opposition parties, saying for most of them family is party while for the BJP the party is the family.

The Prime Minister's remarks came on a day when the Congress appointed Priyanka Gandhi as it's General Secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh.

"BJP does not take decisions based on what one person or one family wants, and that's why it is said mostly in the country family is the party, but in BJP party is the family," he said.

He was addressing booth-level party workers from Baramati, Gadchiroli, Hingoli, Nanded and Nandurbar in Maharashtra through video conferencing.

"I can confidently say that BJP is the sole political party in the country that fully adheres to its democratic principles. We have always been at the forefront of preserving democracy in the country.

"Everyone knows that our millions of Karyakartas were the staunchest critics of the undemocratic Emergency when it was forcefully imposed on us," he said.

Attacking the Congress he said that dynasty, corruption, casteism has been in the 'gotra' of the grand old party and when he says "Congress mukt Bharat", it means fighting to remove this culture from Indian politics.

Interacting with party workers of Baramati, Modi also slammed NCP chief Sharad Pawar, saying he was humiliated by the Congress and now he has joined hands with it.

"He was humiliated in the party just because he wanted to be a candidate for the party's President. Such thing can happen in dynast parties. Despite this Pawarji has today joined hands with the Congress," Modi said.

Describing the ways in which the incumbent government under his leadership has eased living for the ordinary people of the country, he said that creating people-friendly systems and mechanisms in the country is one of the main pillars of his governance.

"Such systems and processes need to be based upon 'people-first' approaches while also being technologically advanced and effective in order to address the issues of citizens in the 21st century," he said.

Commenting on the different approaches adopted by his government he said, "You would have seen in the last four and a half years the complete transformation of how a government works, we not only start important projects but also ensure their completion in a time-bound manner."

The Prime Minister said his government was not only completing the projects started by it but also completing the ones that were started by previous governments.

He said it was the result of this continuous effort that in the last four and a half years, stalled projects worth more than Rs 12 lakh crore have been restarted.